The Human and the Hand-Drawn Image in Comics, Animation, and Book Illustration

full name / name of organization:

2nd Annual Illustration, Comics, and Animation Conference at Dartmouth College February 28 – March 2, 2014

contact email:

michael.chaney@dartmouth.edu

This special topics panel seeks papers that explore the relationship between the human and the hand-drawn image in all of its contemporary forms in media from comics and illustrations in children's literature to animated cartoons.

Some particular questions to respond to include:

In what ways do these images theorize the human?

What is the status of the hand-drawn image in the age of digital reproduction? How does that status relate to the human?

To what extent do such images intervene upon the aesthetics and politics of realism?

How might the study of hand-drawn images and visual culture pertain to the current status of the humanities?

How do recognizably drawn images mediate identity? How do the psychic, social, sexual, political, historical coordinates of identity change when presented as a primarily visual phenomenon?

How does the human in hand-drawn visual culture engage with the animal, the cyborg, the post-racial, the post-human?

Please send 300 word abstracts and a brief bio for each proposed paper no later than December 1, 2013.